(Stillwater, Okla.) — A former employee of the Merry Maids housekeeping service, who has a criminal record, has been accused of stealing an 86-year-old woman’s $1,500 cocktail ring while cleaning her home in Stillwater and pawning the ring in January.
An arrest warrant was issued last week for Becky Sue Peters, 54, of Perry, who was not in the Payne County Jail on Monday evening, a sheriff’s spokesman told KUSH.
If convicted of exploitation of an elderly person and making a false pawn declaration of ownership, both after a former felony conviction, Peters could receive as much as two life prison terms due to her criminal record, according to the two-count felony charge filed by prosecutor Debra Vincent.
An 86-year-old Stillwater woman said that her wedding/engagement band and a cocktail ring, each valued at $1,500, had been stolen from her residence, Stillwater Police Officer C.F. Skimbo wrote in an affidavit filed last week.
She “thinks she last saw the rings in her jewelry box around three weeks prior to me contacting her,” on Jan. 30, the officer wrote in his affidavit.
The victim said that the jewelry box was located in her bedroom and that she sometimes leaves her front door unlocked, the affidavit said.
“She said the last people to be at her house were employees of Merry Maids,” the affidavit said.
When the officer spoke to the manager at Merry Maids, he said one of his former employees, Becky Sue Peters, had admitted to taking the woman’s jewelry, the affidavit alleged.
The manager knew that Peters was one of two employees who had cleaned the 86-year-old woman’s residence during the suspected dates of the theft, the affidavit alleged.
The manager said that “Peters denied the accusation at first, but then later stated she did take the jewelry,” and admitted to pawning it at EZ Pawn on N. Perkins Road in Stillwater, the affidavit alleged.
Staff at EZ Pawn told the officer that they did have jewelry pawned from Peters, the affidavit alleged. “I had them place a hold on the jewelry,” the officer wrote in his affidavit.
On Feb. 19, the elderly woman met with Investigator Richard Leport to examine the jewelry that Peters sold to EZ Pawn and “identified one of the rings as the cocktail ring stolen from her residence,” the affidavit alleged.
According to Payne County court records, Peters was convicted in 2013 of three counts of second-degree forgery in Stillwater for which she was initially placed on seven years of probation, except 120 days in jail, with an order to pay $4,533 restitution. Eight months later, she was found to have violated her probation and ordered to spend 180 days in jail, with credit for time served, from which she was released in mid-December.
Peters was also convicted in 2013 of committing a pattern of criminal offenses in Stillwater for making fraudulent ATM withdrawals on a Perry man’s card, for which she was also initially placed on seven years of probation, except 120 days in jail, with an order to pay $2,596 restitution in that case. Eight months later, she was found to have violated her probation and ordered to spend 180 days in jail, with credit for time served, from which she was released in mid-December.
Peters was also convicted in 2013 of second-degree forgery in Stillwater for passing a $2,000 check in Stillwater that had been stolen from a resident’s room at the Renaissance Assisted Living Center where she had previously worked. In that case, she was also initially placed on seven years of probation, except 120 days in jail, with an order to pay $2,000 restitution. Eight months later, she was found to have violated her probation and ordered to spend 180 days in jail, with credit for time served, from which she was released in mid-December.
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